Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
The Grand Canyon is nothing special, at least this time of year. There are a lot of people and lines everywhere. A line getting into the park, cars parked on the side of the road because there's not enough room in the parking lots, tourists crowding the viewpoints, etc.
It's also very expensive here. $25 to get in (luckily I have a Annual National Parks Pass, which is now $85, up from $50 just one or two years ago), it's $15-18 (cash only) to camp in the miserable cold (other parks are $10), the food is expensive, and all the hotels in the area are over $80 a night (I'm shooting for around $40 because it's winter). The park is also very developed... the in-park general store is just like your regular grocery store - selling everything from a full line of frozen foods to fresh meat like 10lb rib roasts. There's even a well-stocked camping supplies store with a lot of your typical *real* backpacking stuff like Jetboils, Granite Gear packs, crampons, etc. Lodges are everywhere and there's a well-developed shuttle system for the crowds.
The sunsets and sunrises are unspectacular, maybe because of the weird angle of the sun (it's incredibly southwest/southeast in the winter). People crowd the viewpoints and it's hard to set up your tripod in a good location. Not to mention the places are all photographed to death by now and that there's really nothing new to look at. Just light brown canyons. Most of the viewpoints have pretty much the same view, just like in Bryce. In the middle of the day the canyons are absolutely boring and washed out. The park rangers also look tired and mobbed by the crowds. Tourists shooting the canyon viewpoints with flash.
I've been really under the weather lately. Ever since that damned restaurant at Bryce... every time I eat I feel like I want to throw up afterwards. In the tent I want to throw up. Photographing I want to throw up. I'm also feeling kinda weak because of the lack of food intake (because I don't want to throw up) and the messed-up hours (forcing myself out of my tent and into 15 degree weather at 4-6AM every single day). Just last night I drove to a viewpoint an hour before sunset and I had to pass out in the car for a while because I was feeling really tired and vomit-y. I had originally planned on hiking the rim, from south rim to the river and back to the south rim, but now there's no chance in my condition. Oh well. Doesn't look like there's much to see anyway.
I met a photographer with a Nikon D3. It's amazing. I held it. In my hands. I held a camera in my hands that is worth more than my entire car. I am seriously contemplating switching over to Nikon (Nikon SLRs are outnumbering Canon SLRs about 6 to 1 here, BTW). Nikons are just so much more ergonomic and user-friendly, and now that they've moved to CMOS sensors, their image quality and shooting speed can absolutely rival Canon's.
My car makes no sense. On the highway doing 75mph I get 40mpg. In the mountains, going up and down, constantly revving high in 3rd gear to make it up the inclines, I get 42mpg. Because it's so light, it handles like a dream in snow and the curves. I only wish it could handle deep snow/sand/mud and not get stuck. I love my car (Toyota Echo standard with 105K miles).
I'm in the town of Williams, AZ right now. Gonna go get me some $9 Prime Rib at Kitty's
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12/25/07
Merry Christmas!
I originally said that I was going on a morning hike in the dark to Observation Point in Zion, but this changed. The night before I got a mild case of food poisoning from eating restaurant food the night before. I checked into a hotel and was completely drained of energy and felt like I was going to throw up. I went to bed at 6PM, woke up at 3AM Christmas day, and REALLY didn't feel like doing the hike at 4AM and hiking in the dark, reaching the point at 7AM.
So I decided to do the hike for sunset. I set out at noon carrying my XT, 30D, 100-300mm, 17-50mm, 10-20mm, full tripod, 2 liters of water, a headlamp, Yaktrax, trail mix, and warm clothes. I made it up there at 3:15 and stayed there for the sunset, which sucked. The park ranger I spoke to beforehand said that Observation Point would be good for sunset, but it was mostly all front-lit, meaning I was shooting into the sun and getting killed by my camera's limited dynamic range. At 5:30PM I left the point and started my way down. There was no one around except a guy who had left 15 minutes earlier. It was really dark.
Let me tell ya, a 4 mile hike in complete darkness in canyon country with only a little headlamp is scary.
1. The trails were icy. My Yaktrax and hiking poles helped, but I fell one time and slid down the trail a bit. On these narrow canyon-side trails, it's easy to fall, slide ten feet or so, and slide completely OFF the trail and free-fall to your death. Falling with $3K worth of camera equipment strapped to you isn't fun either.
2. Ice is black at night. It's sometimes freaky to round a corner and the entire canyon wall and trail is black. And it's a very "liquid" black, both in color and shape.
3. Canyon hiking is one of the darkest experiences of all. You are surrounded on all sides by sheer vertical walls hundreds of feet high. The darkness is completely engulfing. In front, on your sides, behind, above, and even under you if there is ice is completely and utterly black. You are the only sound you hear and the only light you see. If your light goes out, you're hunkering down for the night in complete darkness because there's no way you're going to make it out. When the sun rises 10 hours later, the canyons are the last places to get light, and the first to go dark.
4. Hiking with a headlamp is like tunnel vision. The light projected is not very wide or far, and that is all you see. SOMETHING could be standing two feet to the side of the trail and you wouldn't even know it.
5. All the dead, leafless trees can look menacing. There are even trees here that are black in color.
6. There's always the thought in the back of my mind of what if during the process of shining my light around it lands on a pair of eyes staring back at me from the darkness. Or a black shape. Or a person, just standing there with absolutely no fathomable reason to be out here, about to kill me.
7. I momentarily lost the trail once. I was following footsteps in the snow when they suddenly ended at a cliff. I backtracked, looking around in my tunnel vision, and seriously contemplated having to spend the night. I finally found the trail again, which I had passed because it was literally just a pile of rocks that went downwards about ten feet.
8. It took a lot of willpower to keep my mind in check. I tend to have an imagination, and it took a lot to just concentrate on the lit path in front of me and not think about all the what-ifs and things that may lie in the darkness immediately outside my cone of light.
9. I couldn't afford to stay at the Zion campground tonight, because they charge $16, cash or check only, and I only have $15 cash on me. No ATMs. So I'm staying at the same motel as I did the night before, which accepts credit card.
10. All in all, A+++++ will hike again. I am REALLY glad I didn't do the hike in the morning, as originally planned. A dark morning hike through terrain that I'm unfamiliar with would have been very unnerving. No sense of distances, not sure if I missed a turnoff, not sure how much longer or further it is to the destination, etc. Switchback after switchback after switchback.
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I just got to Zion and all I have to say is holy cow. It's so amazing I don't even know how to start photographing this place. It's just too big.
Anyway, I'm thinking about going on a hike tomorrow morning to Observation Point to catch the sunrise. The problem with this is that it is 4 miles to the point, and if I want to catch the sunrise at the point I'll be hiking these 4 miles in complete darkness. Alone. With nothing but my headlamp and photo stuff. Bunny scared
Anyway, some highlights of the trip so far:
I got stuck in the snow while making a U-turn and had to get pulled out by an SUV (tow rope supplied by me just for these situations)
I had to get a jump from someone in Vail, CO (jumper cables supplied by me, again). My negative terminal turned out to be loose and needed tightening.
One morning it was so cold that my water bottle had frozen solid, my cranberry juice was slush, my toothpaste was close to being a solid, and my contacts were frozen in the contact lens solution.
The Dixie highway is amazing. One part of it has you driving along a mountain crest that is literally as thin as the road is wide. With no rails on the road. If you slide off you're literally in for solid minutes of rolling, then free-fall, then more rolling, then death.
There are a TON of Asians around Zion, Bryce, and I'm assuming Grand Canyon. Literally about 90% of the visitors are Asian.
Got some good photos
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I'm stopping in Boulder to check out the Montbell Store. I need to get to Capitol Reef NP by tonight, probably after midnight.
Last night I camped at Milford State Park in Kansas, and I slept outside with no tent, just my sleeping bag and sleeping pad. The temperate was 32F. Today I called my dad and said that yesterday was fine and that I even slept without a sleeping bag. His voice get REALLY worried like I had just committed some sort of ultimate sin and said that I should never ever do such a thing again. If I do it cold chi will penetrate my body and build up, and when I am old I will be wracked by pains as a result of this cold chi being released. Never mind that I wasn't even cold... apparently having cold air blow over your body and breathing it in will do it.
Before I left I was going out to the car for literally half a minute to put something in the trunk. Because it was so short, I didn't bother putting on my jacket. My dad stopped me at the door and ordered me to put on my jacket because it was cold. I said I was only going out for half a minute and he started screaming at me about this chi crap. Before I left on the trip he gave me a very stern lecture about this chi, and how there are so many studies that have proven this stuff. Yeah, right. Oh, I'm 60 and wracked with pains. I know! It was because cold air blew over me when I was young! Of course!
Basically from now on I'm only going to tell my parents warm happy things about my trip, even if it means I have to lie to them. I just don't feel like dealing with this crap during what is supposed to be a relaxing vacation. So what if I'm kind of roughing it? It's what I enjoy.
Ugg, later.